Thursday, March 10, 2011

Banding Record and Age

And - one more time - with feeling - THIS IS WHY WE BAND BIRDS!

We already knew that pelagic birds tend to have some of the highest records for age in the bird world. The oldest known U.S. wild bird – a coyly conservative 60 -- is a new mother. The bird, a Laysan albatross named Wisdom, was just spotted recently. Here is the full article. Almost as amazing as being a parent at 60 is the number of miles this bird has likely logged – about 50,000 miles a year as an adult – which means that Wisdom has flown at least 2 to 3 million miles since she was first banded. Or, to put it another way, that’s 4 to 6 trips from the Earth to the Moon and back again with plenty of miles to spare. If you want to look up ages of other oldest reported species you can click here.